Alice in the Cities (Film) and “The American Dream” (Essay-Poem) as Highly Self-conscious Works about the “Media Landscape”? Anonymous College

Wim Wenders’ film and essay- poem can to be considered as ‘highly self conscious works’ simply due to the fact that they both raise issues about American culture and make a conscious effort to solve them. Did the fact that Philip suffered from a case of writer’s block prove that the American way of living suppressed his individual creativity? Is the pessimistic tone of Wenders’ The American Dream testament to the idea that The American Dream cannot be realised in such a corrupt social landscape, one that prefers people to act as cogs in a machine rather than individuals capable of flourishing themselves? It is true that commercialisation can serve to work against the ideals of The American Dream, and this essay will aim to find out just how much of a factor this was in Wenders’ decision not to portray America as a land of prosperity as it so often is shown to be. The media landscape (of the time) can be used to answer all of the questions above, and this is what will be explored in the main body of this essay.

The commercialist nature of the American media landscape is clearly not appreciated by Wenders, who uses Philip Winter to bring this view to the film screen. He claims that ‘in the end, all programs are commercials…. not...